the method they are taking for their defence, and the probability of their being able to save the place, provided they could be furnished with a sufficient stock of Powder and Ball, having been represented to this Court; and being desirous that a place of so great importance as Salem is, might, if possible, be saved from destruction; this Court earnestly recommend to the Towns hereafter named, that they would furnish the forementioned place with the several quantities of Powder proposed in this list, upon their application to them for it; which quantity shall either be returned to them again in Powder, or paid for in Money, not exceeding five Shillings a pound, by the Selectmen or Committee of Safety of the Town of Salem, as the Selectmen of the several Towns from where it is taken shall choose. The names of the Towns to be draughted from: Danvers, 50 pounds; Rowley, 50; Andover, 50; Haverhill, 50; Topsfield, 25; Boxford, 25; Bradford, 50; Middletown, 25; Methuen, 25—350 pounds.

JOSEPH WHEELER, per order.

In Council, October 28, 1775: Read and concurred.

Doctor Holten brought down a Petition of Joseph P. Palmer, in behalf of the Committee of Correspondence of Braintree. Also, a Petition of James Hayward.

Notice was given that Dr. Church was at the door.*

Ordered, That Dr. Church be admitted to the bar of the House, and that the Committee to order provision for the Guards give directions that the Guards be placed at the several doors of the House.

Dr. Church was accordingly admitted; whereupon there was read an order of the House for an application to General Washington, that he would certify to this House the cause of the detention and imprisonment of Benjamin Church, Esq.

There was also read a copy of Dr. Church’s Letter, as deciphered by the Rev. Mr. West; and a copy of the Proceedings of the Council of War respecting said Church, which had been transmitted by the General, and are as follows, viz:

“I hope this will reach you. Three attempts have I made without success. In effecting the last, the man was discovered in attempting his escape; but fortunately my letter was sewed in the waistband of his breeches. He’ was confined a few days, during which time you may guess ray feelings; but a little art and a little cash settled the matter. ‘Tis a month since my return from Philadelphia; I went by the way of Providence, to visit mother. The Committee for warlike stores made me a formal tender of twelve pieces of cannon, eighteen and twenty-four pounders; they having taken a previous resolution to make the offer to General Ward. To make a merit of my services, I sent them down; and when they received them, they sent them to Stoughton, to be out of danger, even though they had formed the resolution, as I before hinted, of fortifying Bunker’s Hill, which, together with the cowardice of the clumsy Colonel Gerrish and Colonel Scammons, was the lucky occasion of their defeat. This affair happened before my return from Philadelphia, We lost one hundred and

*Account of the examination of Dr. BENJAMIN CHURCH, written while he was in Prison at CAMBRIDGE.

On Friday, October 27, the High Sheriff Howe, a messenger of the House of Representatives, at ten o’clock A. M., came to my prison, accompanied by Adjutant-General Gates and the several officers of the guard, with a summons from the honourable House, commanding my immediate attendance at the bar of the House. I requested to be indulged with an opportunity to change my linen, which was indulged me, while the guard was parading, and the officer of my escort waited upon the General for his directions. By the time I had put myself in decent apparel, I received orders to proceed. I had procured, in tills interim, a chaise from a friend, into which the messenger entered with me; in which manner we proceeded, * in the centre of a guard of twenty men, with drum and fife, from my prison in Cambridge to Watertown, being three miles. When arrived at the Meeting-House in Watertown, where the Assembly then sat, the messenger of the House announced my arrival; upon which we received orders to tarry at the door till called for; after waiting a few minutes, the door-keeper, opening the door, directed the messenger to bring in the prisoner. I was then ushered into the House, and advancing up to the bar, which was placed about midway of the broad alley, I made my obeisance to the honourable speaker of the House, James Warren, Esq., and to the members of the honourable House of Representatives there assembled. The galleries, being opened upon this occasion, were thronged with a numerous collection of people of all ranks, to attend so hovel and so important a trial.

The honourable Speaker then began, by informing me that the honourable House of Representatives having been informed that I, a member of that House, was put under arrest by his Excellency General Washington, and their jealousy for the privileges of the House having been excited thereby, they had appointed a Committee of the honourable House to wait upon and confer with his Excellency upon the subject; to which they had received the following answer. Here his Honour recited a letter from his Excellency General Washington, attested by his Secretary, the Hon. Joseph Reed, Esq., specifying, that at a meeting of a General Court-Martial, held at Cambridge, on October 3, present, his Excellency General George Washington, Esquire, President; all the Major-Generals and Brigadier-Generals of the Army, and Adjutant-General Gates, Benjamin, Church, Esq., Director-General of the Hospital, was summoned before them; when a Court of Inquiry being held, it was their unanimous opinion, that said Benjamin Church was convicted of holding a criminal correspondence with the enemy, each member being questioned seriatim upon the matter.. After the Speaker had read the doings of the Court-Martial, the criminal letter, as deciphered by Mr. West, was produced and read to the House; upon which the honourable Speaker observed, “that the honourable House, from a regard to their own honour and reputation, and to express their abhorrence of such conduct in one of their members, had summoned me to the bar of that House, to make answer to the charges exhibited against me, and to proceed in such manner as to vindicate the reputation of the House.” And then holding out the letter, demanded, “if that was a true copy of the letter I wrote in ciphers;” to which I replied, “May it please your Honour and the honourable House, although I am a member of this honourable House, or have been, and have sustained some little part in the struggles of this very respectable body for several months past, yet in the matter now before them, a matter in which I. hold some capital consideration, I profess myself to be totally unacquainted respecting the general design, mode of process, and the issue. If I might entreat the indulgence of the honourable House, I would inform them about a month since I was taken by an armed force, and have been confined a close prisoner for twenty-eight days; secluded by my stern jailors from the cheering eye and consoling tongue of friend and acquaintance, unless by a special license from Head-Quarters, which has been sparingly granted; and never indulged with the aid and advice of counsel learned in the law; six days retained in the most rigorous confinement. I was then led before a General Court-Martial, * attended by my guards; after a scrutiny, novel and undecisive, which I then apprehended to be a trial, I was remanded back to my prison; but at my request, and the indulgence of the General, attended only by the officers of the guard. There I have been held in the most cruel imprisonment, at the point of the bayonet, ever since. This morning, may it please your Honours, at the hour of ten o’clock, without any previous intimation of such a design, without any expectation of such an event, I am summoned, eximproviso and immediately, to the bar of this honourable House... Bowed to the dust by infirmity produced by distress, harassed and sickening with painful suspense, aggravated vexations, rigorous imprisonment, and a load of sorrows no longer supportable, am I called upon to make my defence. Though in a situation to wound the bosom of compassion, and from the eye of humanity to steal a tear, relying on conscious integrity, that trial I wish riot to evade: only let me be determined, Sir, whether the jurisdiction of this House extends to the whole enormity of the transaction of which I stand accused; whether, may it please your Honour, this trial shall be final and decisive.” To which his Honour the Speaker made answer, “that the honourable House had determined to examine this matter no further than as it related to a member of that House.” To which I rejoined, “sorry am I, Sir, that my plea for justice cannot be heard: I have been led from Caiaphas to Herod, and from Herod to Pontius Pilate. To what tribunal shall I make my final appeal? The House will pardon me; but while they appear so tremblingly alive to preserve their reputation unsullied, they should not forget the sinister influence such precipitation will have at the future trial of perhaps an innocent man; my cause will be prejudged, and my guilt ascertained by the sanction of this important body, before due inquisition is made. I did hear, Sir, that this House had determined on my expulsion;† I immediately transmitted to your Honour a formal resignation of my seat as a member of this House, in some measure to prevent the ill consequences which their censure might produce hereafter. This honourable House may possibly remember, when Mr. Wilkes was arraigned, in the language of Lord Chatham, for ‘blaspheming his God and libolling his King, ’ the House of Commons, of which he was then a member, did not evidence a premature distress lest their immaculate honours should be tainted; their generous humanity induced them to take no cognizance of the fact, till by due process of law he was condemned to exile. After which, they expelled him the House. “The Honourable Major Hawley then moved, that the honourable Speaker would put the question to me, whether the letter then read was a true copy of the letter I wrote in ciphers. I replied, it was not an exact copy. Major Hawley then urged, that perhaps there was some trifling literal variations, which made no material difference, but requested that I might be asked whether the letter, then read did not contain the true meaning and import of my letter in. general. The question was put by the Speaker, to which I answered as follows: “I perceive the honourable House, influenced by a partial purpose, are determined upon an immediate trial. The honourable gentleman from Northampton perfectly mistakes me if he supposes I mean, through chicane or evasion, to interrupt your inquisition; confirmed in assured innocence, I stand prepared for your keenest soarchings. I now first learn, may it please your Honours, of my being convicted by a General Court-Martial of a criminal correspondenced‡ with the enemy; what leads to such a conviction is perfectly unknown to me; and I presume it is something singular that I should be first acquainted with the

* To my utter astonishment, the House, forgetful of their dignity and privileges, in a manner unprecedented, stiffred me to be held in custody of a military guard during the whole time of my trial before the honourable House.

* I was not even there favoured with the assistance of the Advocate-General. They cannot pretend it was not a trial, as they made up their judgment, and determined I was convicted of a criminal correspondence, &.c.

† As the General Court-Martial had convicted me without a trial, perhaps the honourable House will think themselves warranted in their sentence of excommunication.

‡ It appears to me a strange perversion of language to assert that I was convicted of a criminal correspondence with the enemy, when there was no single circumstance to lead to such a conviction beyond the letter itself, which carried in it such evident marks of Tallacy as to destroy its own testimony; add to this, it savours not a little of Hibernianigm to construe the bare writing a Letter (which was never conveyed to the person for whom it was wrote) a conviction of an actual criminal correspondence. The most severe construction that common understanding could affix to this writing, were it indisputably calculated to betray the interest of the community, would be “an attempt